Look past the ticket booth and the car lanes at the Orcas ferry terminal and there is a second, older waterfront. San Juan County's public dock sits right beside the Washington State Ferries terminal and next to the WSF and county park-and-ride. The dock also hosts some of the terminal's own operations. The county's planning documents note that it's within walking distance of a grocery store, a hotel, restaurants, the post office, shops and rental cars. It is free, public transient moorage. When the ferries have been disrupted, it has carried passenger-only service.
This month that dock gets new hardware. San Juan County Public Works scheduled a replacement main float for November 2026. The new float is smaller than the one it replaces. The full rebuild the county says the facility needs costs about fifteen times as much as this float, and the federal money for that rebuild is still unsettled. The new float is the version of Orcas Landing the county can afford with its own money, and it may be the dock the south end uses for some time.
What goes in the water this month
The county's October 28 marine facility update puts the Orcas Landing Main Float Replacement at $260,000. That covers consulting, permits, mitigation credits, fabrication, installation and related work. The update was presented to the San Juan County Council, and The Orcasonian ran it the next day.
The float is going into a facility with a long repair history. The county acquired the Orcas Landing dock in 2008 with state support. Emergency repairs and partial closures followed in 2023, 2024 and 2025. The county's April notice said those "past patches and temporary fixes" had been "disruptive and expensive," and that they had also kept in service a structure built on heavy creosote timbers that keep affecting marine waters. According to a January 22 Public Works presentation, a full replacement could remove more than 70 creosote piles.
The new float adds one more fix to the old dock. Replacing the dock itself is a much bigger project.
The number the county asked for and the number on paper
The county puts the cost of a full Orcas Landing replacement at about $4 million. This spring it went to Washington, D.C. for that amount. Rep. Rick Larsen listed a $4 million request for Orcas Landing Marine Facility Improvements among his FY2027 Community Project Funding requests. When the county announced the request on April 2, Council Chair Justin Paulsen said the project "represents the potential for significant benefit to all segments of our community." He called the facility "one of the primary transportation hubs in San Juan County."
Here is what the federal paperwork shows now.
Figure | Amount | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|
Full Orcas Landing replacement, county estimate | $4,000,000 | Unfunded |
Rep. Larsen's FY2027 request | $4,000,000 | Submitted April 2026 |
House Appropriations final THUD project table | $250,000 | Listed for San Juan County, Orcas Landing Marine Facility Improvements |
Replacement main float, county cost | $260,000 | Work planned for November 2026 |
The House Appropriations Committee's final Community Project Funding table for Transportation-HUD lists the Orcas Landing project at $250,000. That is one sixteenth of the request, and $10,000 less than the county is spending on this single float.
The $250,000 isn't law yet either. The committee approved the bill, H.R. 9170, on June 3, and it went onto the House calendar on June 5. The full House has not passed it. Federal agencies are running on a continuing resolution through December 11, 2026, according to the Congress.gov appropriations status table last updated October 9.
Why the county can't close the gap itself
The reason a $4 million dock depends on a congressional line item comes down to how the county pays for marine work. Its docks and floats are funded from the Roads Fund. That's the same pot that maintains county roads, and its regular income, such as state fuel taxes, was never sized for saltwater infrastructure. About a third of the county's six-year transportation improvement program is marine capital projects. Public Works Director Colin Huntemer told the Council the Roads Fund alone can't cover the major replacements coming over the next several years.
"Many of these facilities were built in a time when it was much easier to get work done in our marine environment," Huntemer said in the county's release. "But now, accomplishing the same work requires significantly more effort."
Without grants or legislative money, the release says, the county will need to consider prioritizing which marine facilities stay open. Its Comprehensive Plan 2025-2045 already sets the order:
- County facilities on islands without ferry service. Today those are Stuart, Decatur and Waldron.
- County facilities on ferry-served islands that give the non-ferry islands their main access. On Orcas, that means the Ferry Terminal, Obstruction Pass and West Sound. Hunter Bay on Lopez and Roche Harbor on San Juan are also in this tier.
- All other county marine facilities on San Juan, Orcas and Lopez.
Orcas Landing ranks in the second tier because people from the outer islands, including neighbors on Decatur, come through it. The county's 2027-2032 program lists seven marine projects that will compete for the same limited money. Orcas Landing is one of them. The others are West Sound, two Madrona Point and Eastsound items, Waldron, Hunter Bay and Griffin Bay.
What the dock carries when the ferry doesn't
The size of the float affects more than recreational boaters. The county's April notice says state and federal vessels from WDFW, the U.S. Coast Guard and DNR regularly tie up at Orcas Landing. A county marine facilities summary from 2020 lists docking for Sheriff and Coast Guard vessels, with sections of the facility set aside for each.
The dock has also carried people when the ferries couldn't. In its April 2 notice, the county lists passenger-only service during ferry disruptions as one of the reasons it calls the facility "a vital transportation asset." Anyone who sat through October's cancellations knows how much that backup matters. Our post on the ferry protections Orcas riders set up ahead of time covers the reservation and medical-priority side of a disruption. The public float is the part of that backup that sits in the water.
Orcas Landing: Then and Now traces how the south end's waterfront has changed over the years. The county's January presentation describes this facility in working terms: an essential transportation facility for residents and visitors, next to the WSF terminal and the park-and-ride.
The calendar from now to spring
The other county float on the island gives a useful comparison. In Eastsound, the county pulled the 40-foot public float in 2025 after an inspection found damaged pilings. The repair there replaces seven creosote piles with three steel ones, at an estimated $405,000. That is more than the new Orcas Landing float costs, for a smaller facility used only part of the year. The dates to watch on both:
- November 2026. The Orcas Landing replacement main float is scheduled to go in. In-water construction on the Eastsound piling repair was also expected to start this month.
- December 11, 2026. The current federal continuing resolution runs out. The FY2027 Transportation-HUD bill, the one carrying the $250,000 Orcas Landing line, has not passed the House.
- January 15, 2027. The county's deadline for returning the Eastsound dock to its condition before the closure.
- April 2027. The Eastsound float is expected back for seasonal use. The county removes that float each year between September and May to protect it from winter storms.
At Orcas Landing, the new float is a $260,000 county purchase. The $4 million replacement, with the creosote removal and modern construction the county has described, is still a request in a federal bill. The House committee figure for it is $250,000.
At True North Realty, we keep a close eye on the south end because the ferry landing shapes how people reach their homes on Orcas and the outer islands. If you're weighing a property near the terminal or out on the islands that rely on it, contact our Orcas Island specialists today. We'll walk you through what the dock and the ferry schedule look like this winter.
